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Is an American accent useful for earning more money and getting a higher paying job?

Isn’t it enough if people can just understand your English?

Is a thick accent a real problem in international business?

Well, I wish I could tell you that this kind of thing doesn’t matter, but the fact is, it matters a lot. No one will tell you it’s necessary, just like no one will tell you that you didn’t get a job only because you didn’t wear a nice suit or a nice dress.

The reality is, however, that image matters in life. It matters in business. How you look, how you talk, how you smile, how you shake hands, etc are important. It’s all image, and image means a lot!

As a non native speaker, learning to develop an American accent is perhaps the most important thing you can do to boost your image, and indirectly dramatically improve your job opportunities and your salary. An American accent adds a lot of points to your image. It makes you more respected, more credible. That will get you a better salary almost anywhere.

As silly as it sounds, it’s 100% true in the real world. It’s important to accept it if you are serious about your business life.

So many of my students have used it and then emailed me about the much higher paying jobs they got after only 30-90 days after trying it. There are several free video lessons on there as well. Here is the first sample one:

Subscribe to the Youtube Channel for some free practice lessons to get the idea. It’s some of the best business advice I could give a non native speaker who wants to make REAL money. Trust me.

China232 is the best and coolest website for learning English. It’s for business English and casual slang. It’s not only for Chinese people. They actually have millions of downloads from over 175 countries. They are coming out with an App soon and a wicked writing section. It is definitely worth looking into for anyone who is bored of the traditional ways to learn English that totally suck and don’t help.

If you use this website, you’ll have a lot of fun and learn a lot of stuff on your Ipod, Ipad, Iphone, or any Android device. These 2 brothers are hilarious and teach you all the right stuff that schools never teach.

If you are a non native speaker and you want to learn about business and all the latest culture and slang of real American style English speakers, the best site to check out is China232. Below is a link to a site that ranks them number 1 in the world for overall podcasting:

I know your time is valuable and I respect that. In exchange for a little bit of your time, I’d like to give you a free PDF to help you study business English and take your career to the next level. I’ll teach you modern business vocabulary, negotiation techniques, business English email writing, how to get great jobs in western companies, interview strategies, and a lot more cool stuff. I need your email address but I promise not to sell it or abuse it. I will only give you stuff that I truly believe you will find useful.

Go to the homepage of this website and you’ll be emailed PDF’s and other valuable learning advice for free. You will see a place to put in your email. I know you are a smart person so you will understand that nothing is really for free. I will offer you something that you might want to buy. I know some people will be interested and some people won’t. That’s the business. I understand that and I’m totally ok with that. I’m happy to give you free information anyway since it costs me nothing to make it.

English is the international language in both the social and the business world. Globalization is causing fierce competition between multinational companies. A successful company like “Apple” can sell their products all over the world and create huge fortunes. An unsuccessful company (most companies are unsuccessful) will lose out and go bankrupt. This “game” is a “winner take all” game. You either win or you lose. It’s pretty much as simple as that in today’s business environment.

If you want to be one of the winners in international business it is imperative that you master English and understand the way business is done across borders and between cultures.

Many students in Asia and other parts of the world take “international business English” as a major. I used to teach a course on that in a famous university in Asia. The problem I found was that students were usually much more prepared for passing tests than they were for succeeding in business.

Practical “hands on” knowledge always beats “theory”. If you really want to study this material you need to learn the most commonly used vocabulary terms in business today and also a variety of other skills like communication and negotiation. Language is only one small part of the equation because human emotion and cultural differences can also “make or break” business deals.

You need to be able to express yourself clearly and learn how to write business emails in English as well as speak clearly and politely on the phone and in face to face meetings. These skills are MUCH more important and helpful for making money in the real world than simply getting degree from a great university.

Spoken English is a major key to success in doing international business. English is clearly the international language and speaking it well is essential for making money. So many people lose contracts and jobs just because they can’t communicate well. If your English isn’t very good, you need to improve it, otherwise, it makes other business people unable to trust you. Trust is so important for business, and language is a needed to build trust.

Westerners often do business with expensive companies just because the staff speaks English well and understands western culture. That’s it. There product or service might not be great at all. It’s just that many companies can’t trust or don’t want to put in the effort to understand other languages. This might sound stupid or unfair, but it’s the way the world works. Understanding how the world actually works means everything in business.

If English isn’t your first language, you can surely improve, even if your spoken English is already not too bad. The more you can improve, the better your business and business opportunities will be.

Everyone is getting Iphones, Androids, and similar products. When a critical mass of people switch to these devices, more and more markets will pop up. Language learning is perfect for the smart phone for both business and practical reasons.

From a business perspective, people with Iphones and other expensive smart phones have money. They can afford to buy products. Millions of people around the world want to learn English, have an Iphone or Android, and also have some free time to learn. This is perfect.

Also, the nature of English learning is perfect for the mobile device. People can spend their commuting time listening to lessons instead of just being bored. Many things are not possible to learn from audio. English is a huge exception.

Communication is everything in business. Don’t worry about having an accent or making grammatical errors. You will get better over time and that isn’t too important anyway. Communication is all about getting your point across and making sure that both people understand each other. If your point makes sense and you have a good cultural and psychological understanding of who you are speaking with, you are set.

It is a good idea to read a lot and know what is going on in the world. Be able to talk a bit about sports, dating, and whatever else people want to talk about. There will be cultural differences and you don’t have to agree with the “western” perspective, but you need to understand it and be able to play the game a little. Try to understand what the other person is really saying and don’t always try to be right. It’s a good idea to make some light jokes about yourself and talk about some weaknesses in your own culture. International business communication can often end up in a big argument and major misunderstanding. This is not what you want. Try to focus on what you and the other person have in common and focus on that instead of your differences. It’s ok to disagree with something, just don’t make a big deal about it. Every country does things a little differently. It’s a fact of the world. Who cares who is right? Everyone has a slightly different view of the world and in order to communicate effectively you have to be prepared to accept this fact. The people who are more flexible and less stuck inside their own culture do much better in business. Try to joke around about how funny the world is to avoid weird and uncomfortable situations. You might find the other person you are talking to is wrong about something, but try to forget about it if it doesn’t really matter with the business you are trying to do. Just keep that thought to yourself or gently express your point of view without being too aggressive. People love to feel they are understood. Get in the habit of giving them this feeling and they will want to work with you or give you the job.

Business people are super busy and they have a lot of respect for their time. They get a lot of emails and probably don’t read most of them. It’s essential to know how to write a proper business English email that people will read and respond to.

1. It is important to keep them short and to the point. People are too busy to read long emails. Don’t add in a bunch of extra words for no reason.

2. If you already know the person, write to him or her as if it were your friend. Don’t make the email seem like it was written by a machine. Make it a bit personal. Use a bit of humor. Work is often boring and it’s much more fun to read something that seems like it is from a friend. In today’s world, you can often start an business email with something like,

“Hey John, How’s it going? I just wanted to let you know about….

Talk soon.

P.s. Hope your kids are doing well.”

That kind of style is much friendlier than something like,

“Dear Mr. Jones,

Our company has a new product we think you would be interested in. bla bla bla

Sincerely,

Name”

3. Write mostly about how they will benefit by whatever you are writing about. Be sincere. Most people are smart enough to know what is fake and when people are just trying to sell you something. Think about how you react to those emails. You probably are like most people and just mark them as corporate junk mail.

It is important to understand the people you are working with. There are many different kinds of successful business personalities. Some people are really conservative and like to keep it that way. Other people like to joke around a lot and have really informal business meetings.

A good idea is to start off by being pretty conservative at first and do a lot of listening. Try to get a good feeling for who the other person is. Are they married with kids? Are they religious? How old are they? How do they dress? What do they hate? What kind of people do they respect? What do they do for fun?

You never want to be fake, but you want to make sure that you are acting in a way that makes the other person comfortable. If they tell a lot of dirty jokes and have fun while doing business, you should do the same.

If you can understand their personality, what they like and dislike, what they are afraid of, etc, you stand a much better chance to be do business with that person. It’s just a fact of human nature. There is no “one size fits all” approach to business meetings. People are different and they react differently to different kinds of people.

In today’s world, I can’t think of any reason why someone would try to learn business English in a language school. Business English schools came out well before the Ipod and the internet. Most people are slow to change so there are still a lot of people who think in this old way. It makes no logical sense but that is what most people do. Don’t make the mistake most people make.

Now you can take advantage of technology and get a cheaper, more convenient, and better business English education online and listen and learn anytime and any place.

If you listen to some awesome mp3 business English lessons and compare that with a business English language school, you’ll be amazed at how much more relevant and useful the online learning style can be. Of course, an online course doesn’t mean that it’s good just because it is online, but it at least makes more sense. You have to choose carefully and stick with the program, but if you do it could be the best investment you’ve ever made.